Closing Christmas with Celebration
Christmastide is coming to a close, and one of my favorite traditions over the years has become ending the Christmas season and beginning Epiphany with a Twelfth Night Party on January 5. The Twelfth Night celebrates both the final night of Christmas as well as the beginning of Epiphany (January 6)--a bookend to the 12 Days of Christmans, commemorating the arrival of the Magi to the Christ-child.
Here are a few ways to celebrate Twelfth Night:
Wisemen arrive to the Nativity scene. If your magi have been traveling around the house like ours do during Christmastide, making the arduous journey from the East to Bethlehem, now is the time for them to make their appearance at your nativity scene.
Read Matthew 2:1-12. Recount aloud the story of the magi’s journey to Jesus. If you want to turn this into a short service, sing We Three Kings as three children carry the magi to the nativity scene. Once the carol is over, read the story from Matthew and close with a short prayer.
Take down your Christmas decorations. When we take down the star on top of our tree, we stop to recount the story of the magi following the star just as we did when we put the star up at the beginning of Christmastide.
Use your live greenery for a bonfire. Set aside any of your live Christmas greenery trees, garlands and wreaths, and use them for a Twelfth Night bonfire, inviting friends and family to bring theirs as well. Be forewarned, Christmas trees make HUGE fires, so proceed with caution here!
Sing Christmas and Epiphany Carols. Standing around a bonfire or a piano is the perfect way to get some final Christmas carols in. Some suggestions for the end of Christmastide are: We Three Kings, Twelve Days of Christmas, O Come All Ye Faithful, Go Tell It On the Mountain.
Eat King Cake. Before King Cake became a New Orleans staple for Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday, it was a traditional dessert for Epiphany and Twelfth Night. Likely originating in France and Spain during the Middle Ages, the pastry is twisted into a circle representing a crown, with brightly colored sparkling sprinkles (typically yellow, green and purple) to represent gems. Inside, hides a small plastic baby representing the Christ child. I’ve never made it before because I’m usually done with baking come January 5, and you can buy it in most grocery stores—but the recipe is pretty standard!
Drink Hot Wassail: Wassail, a type of mulled cider, is traditional for Twelfth Night, but mulled wine is a great alternative as well. Here’s a delicious wassail recipe from the New York Times.
Wear Crowns: My kiddos love decorating paper crowns to wear for Epiphany as an ode to the magi, and there are tons of easy printables here.
As we mark the end of Christmas and beginning of Epiphany, I leave you with this poem by Michael Dougherty:
When the carols
Have been stilled,
When the star-topped tree
Is taken down,
When family and friends
Are gone home,
When we are back to our schedules
The work of Christmas begins
To welcome the refugee,
To heal a broken planet,
To feed the hungry,
To build bridges of trust,
Not walls of fear,
To share our gifts,
To see justice and peace
For all people
To bring Christ’s light
To the world.